MOBILE, Alabama — Alabama Democrats and Republicans are as divided as ever, feuding about everything from immigration and insurance to office space in the state Capitol. One thing we can all agree on: both sides look like hypocrites.

In case you missed it, the two parties spent most of this sweltering summer in a gotcha game over alleged violations of state campaign finance laws. While the stock market crashed, the unemployment rate climbed and working families struggled to make ends meet, Democrats and Republicans were trading accusations over who took money from whom, and whether they filed the proper paperwork.

The Alabama Democratic Party started this ball rolling by rightly pointing out that a political action committee established by former Gov. Bob Riley took money from another PAC in Washington, D.C. That was a clear violation of the state’s new ban on PAC-to-PAC transfers, and a spokeswoman for Riley’s Alabama 2014 PAC said that the money was returned as soon as she became aware of the situation.

Democratic Party Chairman Mark Kennedy followed that with a second revelation, accusing Republican Speaker of the House Mike Hubbard of orchestrating a series of money transfers on the very day that Riley signed the PAC ban into law.

At the least, those transfers pushed the limits of the campaign finance laws that Republicans championed in last year’s special session on ethics reform. At worst, they’re illegal and merit prosecution.

But the Democrats, it turned out, had some bookkeeping issues of their own. Republican officials released documents showing that the Alabama New South Coalition hadn’t filed required campaign finance reports since 1999, and the Alabama Democratic Conference since 2008.

The 2 black political organizations each claimed it was an oversight and moved promptly to amend their filings, but the failure to report in each case appeared to be a stark violation and a misdemeanor under state law.

The man who was victimized the most by these crimes is, ironically, a black Democrat. Former U.S. Rep. Artur Davis absorbed plenty of punishment from New South and the ADC during his unsuccessful run for governor last year, in no small part because of his refusal to pay fealty to ADC political maestro Joe Reed.

Davis, now working as a lawyer in Virginia, said there are two reasons that groups like ADC and New South don’t file. The first, he said, is mechanical: “They are poorly staffed, if staffed at all, and barely carry a structure in between election seasons.”

The second, he said, is more suspect:

“They don’t prioritize filing because they don’t have any desire to see their benefactors put in plain view,” said Davis, who made campaign finance reform one of the planks in his gubernatorial platform. “Accurate and regular filing would reveal the dollars that follow from candidates seeking their endorsements, and the fact that those dollars sometimes surface years in advance of elections, well before candidate disclosure reports are due.”

Timely filing, he added, “would also capture the web of special interests, from gambling to predatory lending, that often sustain the black political factions between election seasons.”

Both Republicans and Democrats, full of righteous indignation, have carried their complaints to Attorney General Luther Strange — who these days must feel like the referee at a pay-per-view wrestling match. Nonetheless, Strange, a Republican, has an obligation to investigate the complaints and uphold the law for both parties.

Sunlight is vital to good government, and taxpayers have a right to know who’s buying access to their elected leaders. In tough times, they also deserve better than shady politics and partisan games.